The Perfect Storm for Digital Transformation in Smaller Organizations

The next wave of digital disruption will impact small and mid-sized businesses the most. The very survival of these organizations will depend on navigating a perfect storm of market factors and making wise decisions to remain competitive.

Smaller organizations are at a disadvantage when it comes to digital transformation. First, they have far less ability to recover financially from bad technology and marketing decisions. Second, smaller organizations often work and structure their business operations in silos using patched together technical solutions that overlap and rarely integrate. Lastly, smaller organizations tend to separate management, marketing and technology and this a huge risk for survival.

So how can smaller organizations compete in the perfect storm of digital transformation?

Create a Real-World Digital Transformation Plan. A strategic digital plan that is well thought out and that can be applied within a realistic financial range is the first and most important step a business can take. This requires a top down, wholistic evaluation that leaves no stone unturned. This should absolutely include the input of both customers, employees as well as proven outside experts that can offer objective insights.

Seamless and Simple Technical Solutions. The object is not to add technology solutions because you can. The goal should be to simplify, meet customer needs and wants and remain competitive using the right technology platforms that will adapt the changing needs of target markets and the organization. Technology should integrate from the very front line of web sites and apps to the very back end of analytics and customer personalization.

Evaluate the Success and Failures of Other Organizations. Too often, management in smaller organizations make decisions based on internal perspectives rather than looking at real-world successes and failures in the open market. Most business models have a pre-existing identical model that can be examined and dissected to see what does and does not work for their organization. There is no shame in getting success and failure data from other organizations and often they will be open to discuss this topic if properly approached.

This is a critical era for smaller organizations to wake up and realize that digital transformation is real. The challenge is to create a management perspective that is willing to take the time to plan, make difficult and calculated technical decisions and to do the work on the research side to see what does and does not work for other organizations.

Digital transformation is here and it’s not about far off distant technologies. Digital transformation is about what decisions, attitudes and commitment levels organizations will have to compete in the perfect storm of change.

Peter Bowman is a digital strategist, growth consultant, and entrepreneur with twenty-five years of proven experience helping organizations and business owners succeed through digital transformation. Call him 904-295-6196 at to discuss your digital transformation status, needs or to learn more about having him help create Digital Transformation Plan for your organization.